Lord of the Rings Gaming

Merlin and myself not only played a small Kings of War game, we also squeezed in a Middle Earth Strategy Battle Game.
Now I've not played the game for quite a while, last time was the start of a Battle Companies campaign with Merlin. That campaign never really got going, as my orcs suffered such great losses against his dwarves. Part of the issue was the difficulty damaging high Defence targets, the orcs needed numbers to give them a chance, but the starting companies don't seem to support this. I should say I still had a lot of fun losing to Merlin, but I think we both felt that the campaign wasn't worth continuing.

Now one of Merlin's other gaming friends has got the new starter set, so it seemed a great opportunity to dust off the old Lord of the Rings minis and give it another go.
We both invested in the new rulebook and the Lord of the Rings army lists (as opposed to the Hobbit). As an introduction we worked out 250 points of Mordor orcs in my case (obviously) and Lothlorien elves in Merlin's case (of course).
I chose the Reconnoitre game where warbands start off table and roll to appear. The main objective for each side was to get as many troops off the opposite table edge, while preventing the enemy doing the same.

Anyhow, enough words, here's some pictures.

Initially we both managed to bring only one of our two warbands on to the table. 

All warbands in play now. The smaller but(theoretically) tougher band of Morannon orcs and Uruk-hai use the small wood to shield their advance while the larger group of orcs get bogged down by elven shooting and combat.

Warg riders charge the elven line

I was very lucky here, the cavalry rules gave me quite an advantage*. Merlin was also unlucky with his Duel rolls.

The Morannon orcs observe their lesser kin fighting the elves. They seem to be providing sufficient distraction.

A Heroic March brings one orc warband close to the table edge.

Sadly we had to finish here, I suspect if we had continued, I might have got just enough orcs over the line for victory, but things did seem to be going Merlin's way in the big scrap.

Another very enjoyable game. I look forward to more in the near future.

I have some work to do still on my Mordor force. This was essentially a grab bag of what I had painted. I'd like to add some highlights to some of them, and finish off others. The Morannon orc captain and the Warg riders were started more or less from scratch, when they are finished I do a dedicated blog post.

Again I need to sort out scenery. I'm starting another terrain box for 28mm, rather as I did in 15mm here.  I'll start with a generic collection, but I'd like to have a box for Middle Earth, perhaps even several different ones (Rohan, Gondor, Mordor etc) eventually.

*actually, too much of an advantage, as I was including the Warg's attack as well. Not sure how much difference overall it made, but I'll not make that mistake again.

15mm Kings of War-500 points Ogres vs Goblins

Firstly, apologies for the poorer formatting. I'm currently without a proper PC and am trying to do this on an old tablet.

I had another great day of gaming with Merlin. We started with a 500 point clash between my ogres and his goblins.

This was the first battle in our campaign, and hostilities started when both sides met near a neutral goblin village. The enlightened ogres wished to share the benefits of Red Goblin status with the inhabitants, but unfortunately the goblins, led by the despicable Wiz Banga, were trying to enslave them.

Both sides square off, determined to save, or capture, the most goblins.

The goblins swiftly advance. The Fleabag Sniffs are out of range and Banga is hiding in the fields.

 

The Berserker Braves move up and urgently explain the benefits of 'taking the red' to a bunch of villagers. Eagerly they hide behind there huge saviours.

Grik n Grak the Ogre Warlock loads up his Boomstick, draws on the energy of his companions and charges it with a Lightning Bolt, damaging the Fleabag Sniffs.

The Fleabag Riders carefully manoeuvre around a field to threaten the Ogre flank while the Trolls menace a couple of groups of villagers. The terrified goblins cower behind their brutal new masters.

Meanwhile the Sniffs ride down off the hill and target Grik n Grak, hurting him a little.

In response the Ogre Warriors turn to face the advancing Sniffs, wary of being charged in their flank, and the Berserker Braves likewise face the Fleabag Riders. Grick n Grak once more fires his Boomstick, this time wiping out the Sniffs.

The Fleabag Riders charge the Berserker Braves, ruthlessly seizing some hapless villagers as they do. The Trolls lumber into Grik n Grak while Bangs 'bravely' hides behind a hut.  The Trolls injure Grik n Grak sufficiently to put him off his magic, but the Riders, hindered by the field, do little damage to the Berserker Braves.

Unable to use his magic, Grik n Grak withdraws, but the Ogre Warriors are able to swing round into the Trolls' flank (just) wiping them out and freeing the delighted goblins. The Berserker Braves inflicted huge damage on the Fleabag Riders, but amazingly they held (double ones Nerve test).

Realising he should do something, Banga used a Lightning Bolt on Grik n Grak, hurting him slightly. The Fleabag Riders fared much better, wiping out the Berserker Braves and causing the goblins they had freed to flee in panic.

Grik n Grak moved closer to Banga, and once more connected to his magic, stole some of the Wiz's life energy. The Ogre Warriors now charged the Fleabag Riders and destroyed them, freeing more goblin villagers.

In response Banga tried to get to safety, while blasting his magical superior. 

The Ogre Warriors then moved up to reassure the panicked goblin villagers while Grik n Grak finished off the pesky Wiz, using his life force to heal.

The Ogres triumph. Although some of the goblin villagers preferred a miserable life in the wilds, half of them have realised the benefits of working for their new benevolent overlords

A great fun game that really could have gone either way. Merlin was unlucky with his dice rolls, whereas I was lucky, with the exception of the double one Nerve test on the Fleabag Riders.

Merlin has posted a more goblin orientated version of the battle over on his blog, the War Crow, link at the side.

Next time I'll have to include some Red Goblins.

Lord of the Rings Scatter Terrain

Just a quick post to show some scatter terrain.  This is old Games Workshop plastic terrain for the Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle game.  The standing statue is from the Ruins of Osgiliath set, the rest came, I think, with the first Two Towers boxed set.  The campfire and statue particularly will make good objectives.
Of course, it can easily be used in many other games; in my case mostly Kings of War, Dragon Rampant or Frostgrave.

So I remember how I got this colour stonework, it's a black undercoat with a heavy overbrush of VGC Cold Grey, then a drybrush of VGC Stonewall Grey.  Progressively lighter drybrushes of VGC Bonewhite and Off White to finish.  The base is painted to match my normal basing system, and moss is added with VGC Black Green ink in various crevices. 
I'm pleased with the end result, though it does look a bit like the basic plastic colour with some highlights.  I think the Rohan campfire came out particularly well.

I've still to varnish them for protection and add some flock and grass tufts so they match my realm of battle boards, but they will do for an upcoming game with Merlin next week.

2020 Vision

I've discussed the highs and lows of 2019 here, so now let's look at my plans and projects for 2020.

I intend to continue using the five box system.  Although I've not referred to it much recently, it's still working well for me.  So what will be in those boxes, both immediately and over the year?
I've a few projects to finish off; Star Saga for one, with the marines and rangers nearly done there's just the plague victims, the aberration, and the doors and furniture to do.
I'd also like to get just a few more ogres done.  I want to expand my shooting section, and may add some more red goblins.  The campaign that Merlin and I have planned ends with a 2000 point battle, and I'd like to have some different options for that.
I'm also looking at the Ratmen I have and wondering about using them for Ratkin.  I have a Dragon Rampant force of these already, and prior to that they were used briefly in Warband and were originally a Skaven force.  I think there are enough for a 1000 point army, though the majority of the sculpts are no longer available so it would be one project that would have a definite end.

Less happily, I have decided for various reasons that I can't play historical games anymore.  So my Greeks will be sold off.  I'll probably rebase them to fit with one of the more common rules systems, like DBA, but if I can get them on eBay, that's more money to plough back into the hobby.

I recently got Uncharted Empires, the new version of supplementary army lists for Kings of War third edition.  There are some changes to my League army that I'll have to make.  I'll probably call the halfling spears that I spent ages converting just ordinary braves, until the halflings get their own list anyway.  However, I also got a free sprue of 28mm plastic halflings form Atlantic Games, and they are very nice.  Given that a League of Rhordia army now only has three halfling units, I might look again at my old Empire army and see about turning that into a League force.  One box of the new halflings is £25 for 40 minis, with enough to build a regiment of archers and a regiment of braves (with some conversion of weapons, admittedly).  I have loads of old Empire stuff, so this could be quite a cheap project if I don't want any halfing knights to begin with at least.  I'll either make the collection dual purpose League and Kingdoms of Men, or maybe eventually produce another KoM force using mostly historical minis.
I have even been thinking about a 28mm Varangur force.  I had been thinking of doing this in 15mm, based on my Scythians, but the new list is more pitched towards the Northern Alliance style infantry (fair enough, they are the Master List for the Varangur), so I have had thoughts of using the Frostgrave Barbarians for most of the infantry and maybe converting some old Chaos Warriors for the heavy infantry.  Just wild thoughts at the moment, but who knows.

Talking about 28mm, I must finish my Trident Realm.  I'm closer to being happy with it, but I'm not quite there yet.  I think a post explaining the processes and problems might be in order as its been quite a struggle at times.

Apart from roughing out the Ogres vs Goblins campaign, Merlin has been getting interested in Games Workshop's Strategy Battle Games in Middle Earth.  We've both played this at various times, such as the Battle Companies games here, and enjoyed it too.  I understand one of his local gamers has got the new starter set, so we have both found copies of the latest rulebook and are thinking of getting some games in.  I'll probably be dragging my Mordor stuff out, and looking at finishing a force for that.

I'm sure that I'll need a constant stream of stuff painting and building for the D&D campaign.  It's funny, it doesn't matter how many monsters I paint, I always seem to want more.  This is what the metaphysical Cross Box is for; those bits needed for next (or last) session.

Aside from miniatures, I'd like to get some more terrain built and painted.  I enjoyed putting together the League of Rhordia 15mm terrain box last year, and it has proven very useful.  I should look at doing a similar set for 28mm.  Ideally I'd do a Middle Earth box (itself a very wide brief) and a KoW/similar fantasy set, maybe an uplands area with cliffs, dwarf buildings and boulder fields.  This is something I already have quite a bit of, though I've never organised them into sets before.  I'll drag out what I can find soon and do some sorting.

Perhaps I should finish by looking at what is in the five boxes as this will be my initial hobby focus for 2020.
Cross; stuff needed for RPG, currently more cultists, then orcs (probably)
Star; Star Saga
Wave; Lord of the Rings Mordor
Square; Trident Realm
Circle; 15mm ogres

You may notice that I've emptied some of the boxes from last year, I think I had too much stuff in them, and it was time for a change.

So that's my plans.  I'm sure something is bound to come up and disrupt them, let's see how well I do.